'Anant Art Gallery presents Phantasms, a solo exhibition by Thamshangpha ‘Merci’ Maku, curated by Anna Sireiliu Charenamei and Sohorpem Kazingmei, with Shaleen Wadhwana as Curatorial Advisor. The exhibition brings together Merci’s engagement with an invisibilised history and racialised present, examining the borderland as both a physical territory and an interior condition. His practice is informed by experiences of occupation, violence, homesickness and melancholy, and considers the ways in which these experiences manifest through the body.
In Merci’s work, violence extends beyond the body and into the ecology of a custodian community, where women weavers have historically translated elements of nature into abstract motifs. The artist draws from the non-representational methods of rendering practised by these women, a knowledge system passed down intergenerationally through oral instruction. This relationship with inherited forms of making is central to his practice, which moves across canvas, painting, ceramic and installation.
Spectral figures appear across Merci’s canvases, with jagged limbs and bodies extended in different directions, entangled and caught in states of peril. These figures emerge within a practice deeply engaged with literature, community, forest, ritual and forms. His inheritance of an intricate basket-weaving practice has also expanded into wood carving, different methods of weaving and stitching, allowing him to develop a distinctive artistic language across traditional and contemporary forms.
Thamshangpha Maku, Artist, says “The symbols that I trace in my works are not inventions. They are a conversation between my body, the land and memories.” Merci describes the symbols within his work as a conversation between his body, the land and memories. Alongside the weight of these histories, his practice holds a desire for an alternate world, where he can imagine a self that exists outside the responsibilities that haunt his everyday life. This longing is expressed through the possibility of ordinary experiences: drawing a flower without a tableau of cruelty, taking his time during a meal, and being asked about the ways in which he cares for his terrariums.
“With this exhibition, we want to bring out the complexities of Merci as an artist who is contending not just with the stereotypes of a difficult political experience but also trying to make sense of his own quotidian interests and concerns.” say Anna Sireiliu Charenamei and Sohorpem Kazingmei, Curators of the show.
The exhibition brings together Merci’s ongoing engagement with the socio-cultural realities of peripheral regions, indigenous flora and fauna, and the co-existential relationship between humans and their habitat. His artistic process reflects the resilience shaped by his experiences of discrimination, alienation and xenophobia in the central parts of the country.'
Curatorial Note Courtesy Anant Art Gallery
Date 19.10.2026